


Boss Fight

by sunbreaksdown



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Future Fic, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-26
Updated: 2011-12-26
Packaged: 2017-10-28 05:03:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/304031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunbreaksdown/pseuds/sunbreaksdown
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Your name is Rose Lalonde, and you've been a god since you were thirteen. Along with your best friend and fellow impromptu deity, Jade Harley, you're going to slay monsters.</p><p>(Figurative monsters, that is. You annihilated the literal ones years ago, which, when you think about it, is kind of the problem in the first place.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Boss Fight

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sweetguts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sweetguts/gifts).



> For the prompt: _Rose and Jade teaming up against some super-strong enemy. It's fine if you include the boys too, as long as Rose and Jade are the ones kicking the most ass! :)_

     Your name is Rose Lalonde, and you've been a resident of a newly created, thriving universe for two years, six months, seventeen days and around three hours. Of course, not being as pedantic as your friends wrongly assume you are, you simply put it down as two and a half years and a fortnight, give or take a few days. Which is a lot more accurate than Jade Harley's estimation of oh wooow, it really has been a lot time rose!, though somewhat less lively.

     Life is, in a word, good. Unfortunately, _good_ is one of those words that's thrown around far too often and becomes brittle because of it, and you don't think there's a great deal of weight left in a descriptor that could easily apply to both the dinner you ate last night and your opinion on the latest Squiddles movie. (Which, for the record, was artistically ground breaking, in spite of the bare-bones budget, and not lacking the least in subtext. When the reviewer on the Squiddles main website rated it six tentacles out of five, they hadn't been as intoxicated by ink fumes as you initially assumed.)

     You live in the house you grew up in, or an approximation thereof. A few of the corridors seem narrower, and you don't think it's simply because you've done your fair share of growing up between thirteen and now. You know for a fact that the mirrored kitchen has absolutely nothing to do with any new proportions you may now fill, and the surface of this recreated world is almost as marred as the first one, with the exception of a few missing craters here and there. While you have died before and found only blackness in death, that darkness was not necessarily empty; much unlike the memories of all those on this Earth. Nobody recalls the end of the world and their inherent deaths, which left you with a good number of quandaries for a good long time.

     Namely: were they the originals from your old world, resurrected, or were they simply replicas, recreated using the universe's spare energy? Were you and your three friends the only ones truly safe and secure in your own bodies? For weeks that became months you pondered over this, slowly disassociating yourself from the reality around you, until there was your mother. Your mother who was just as alive as she'd been when you were eager to ignore her ironic indulgences, and remarkably less dead than she was when you were finally willing to realise that it hadn't even crossed your mind to consider protecting her. It was three in the morning and there she was, sat on the edge of your bed, not saying anything. Not making a single sound. By the light intruding through the crack of your ajar door, you could just about make out the slight shake of her shoulders, accompanied by the smell of spirits, rich red wines.

     Had your senses been keener still, you imagined there would be saline, too.

     Neither of you have spoken about what happened in the world beyond this one, and while she has said nothing about knowing, at least in part, what you went through, you've no doubt that she remembers it all. Your creation, or perhaps recreation, of this world restored her life, and you see no reason why it wouldn't have done the same for her memory. Because she was _there_ , unlike the rest of the population. As awful as it all was, she deserves to remember. She fought for her home, for you, and she deserves to remember that much.

     One year, three months and eighteen days ago, your mother stopped drinking. This is something that you recall down to the very day, and yet another thing you never bring up around her. There is a lot you'd like to tell her, a lot that will never feel alright until she knows, and sometimes you nearly go through with it. Sometimes you find her in the observatory, watching the stars, and when she asks if there's something you need, you part your lips and almost speak. But you know it isn't time yet. You would like to tell her how you fled atop an asteroid for three long years, and how sometimes, you still see strokes of the future painted in the black behind your eyelids. You'd like to tell her how you fought, how you conjured magic as if from nowhere, and how, when you're not paying attention, your idle thoughts become weightless, and your feet leave the ground.

     You'd like to tell her that you're a god and you're going to live forever, but you know it wouldn't make her look at you any differently. In the end, you keep it all to yourself, and pretend not to find it bizarre that your mother never comments on the fact that Jade Harley has a rather fetching pair of dog ears atop her head.

     And so there you are, close to nineteen years of age, the recipient of a solid education and living an altogether _good_ life, faced with only two foes: boredom and apathy. Because it's easy to give into detachment when you wake every morning to the same old routine, when the biggest choice you have to make is whether you want toast or cereal for breakfast; when the greatest dilemma in your life is whether or not the last essay you wrote was substantial enough. You've been a god since you were thirteen, and all of the power that courses through your veins may well as be as nothing, considering that you put it to no use at all.

     Considering that you have an eternity ahead of you during which your godhood will not serve you as it ought, with life being as abhorrently _liveable_ as it is.

     There are no pantheons built towards the sky in your name, and your mythology is your own to linger over. There are no monsters here, no hulking beasts with power that threatens to outweigh and abolish your own, no clawed creatures that wouldn't hesitate to go straight for your throat. Naturally, you should be grateful for all of this, and you shouldn't slight the normalcy bestowed upon you. You know that, if you think back to the past with the same clarity that you stare into the future with, you'll remember how the adrenaline was never enough to make you feel safe. How the heat of the moment did nothing to demolish your own fear, and the absoluteness of the certainty you felt; the desperate, aching feeling that not all four of you would get out of it alive.

     Surely there would be some heroics between you. Surely there would be some justice in the universe.

     And it isn't that you aren't grateful. Because you are, when all's said and done; at times, you're even happy. But sometimes, you walk out into the heart of the forest surrounding your home and tear trees from the ground by their roots and you don't know why. Sometimes, you sit and feel the fabric of a bright orange sari between your hands, and wonder where you're going and why. Today, when you feel that the world around you is as bleak and twisting as the Furthest Ring, you pick up your cell phone and text Jade, asking her if she's particularly busy.

     Jade responds by way of creating a portal in your bedroom ceiling and poking her head through, long hair hanging down, smile wide.

>   
> hi rose!!!   
> I suppose I should learn to expect teleportation portals and invasions of privacy in lieu of textual responses, when you're involved.   
> 

     From your place on your bed, you stare up at Jade, through the portal, and can see glimpses of her island behind her. Long, lush grass sways in the breeze and threatens to bow into your room, and you squint at the clear, bright blue sky framing Jade. Luckily, she's eclipsing the sun. She waves, and a few stray grains of sand rain down onto your duvet.

>   
> hehehe sorry  
> its kind of difficult to knock when portals are involved you know  
> its an all or nothing sort of deal   
> Be that as it may, you could've teleported into the corridor and knocked from there.   
> oh..............  
> thats a good point! i guess i could have  
> but its not like youre up to anything private right now so theres no harm done!   
> ...  
> None at all.  
> Please, come in. I'm going to end up an unflattering shade of orange if you continue to expose me to the glare of your island.   
> 

     Jade doesn't need to be told twice. With a move that looks vaguely acrobatic until she begins to flail, she dives in through the portal, firing herself at the spot next to you on the bed. It closes with a _blip_ behind her, and you shuffle over towards the wall, giving her a moment to properly locate all of her limbs and make sure they're not tangled up in any untoward manner. Jade shuffles into a sitting position, brushes her hair out of her face and then readjusts her glasses, letting out a little  phew! noise, as if she ran the whole way there.

     Lately, you've become much better at being prepared around Jade. While you're not the most physically affectionate person ever to grace the planet, you're comfortable enough with the occasional hug from people you trust, and so you're ready when Jade throws herself against you. You come out of the initial collision unscathed, arms around her shoulders, and scritch at her ears as a matter of habit. Delighted, she shuffles closer up to you, and you know there and then that this _occasional hug_ is going to deteriorate into a cuddle session.

     You'd try to free yourself, but who are you to go head-to-head with a semipotent deity?

     (Other than a god yourself.)

>   
> so whats up?   
> Your attempt at casual questioning is entirely transparent, Harley. What makes you think something in particular is up?   
> oh i dont know  
> just the way you were texting me out of nowhere and trying to make it seem like you were just casually questioning me too  
> which kind of failed by the way!   
> Oh dear.  
> You saw through my clever ruse, and defeated my attempt to deflect my own behaviour onto you.   
> yep!  
> so what is it??   
> "It," I'm afraid, is nothing terribly specific. I've been thinking. That's all.   
> errrrr ok  
> but when are you not thinking?  
> no offence but it must be soooo busy inside your head all the time!  
> which means theres probably some kind of big deal here  
> or lots of little deals all rolled up together.......   
> 

     And here you pause, wondering how to approach the situation. Out of everyone you know, you've always found it remarkably (and sometimes worryingly) easy to open up to Jade, but you aren't certain that you wish to treat her as a psychiatrist, or otherwise act as if she has all the answers to your half-formed problems that seem all the more hollow with every moment you spend in her presence. On the surface, Jade may seem to be relentlessly cheerful, but you know it doesn't come to her with as much ease as everyone else first assumes. She works for what she has, for her place in this new world, just as you do. She is, however, slightly more successful.

     You would benefit greatly from being more like Jade. From taking matters into your own hands and forcing things forward. The corner of your mouth twitches as you relent, tall walls crumbling, and rest you head against her temple.

>   
> You remember when we first met, don't you?   
> hehe yup  
> theres no way i could forget something like that! me and john were soooo excited to finally meet you and dave  
> but then oh my goodness that THING nearly ruined everything!!!   
> Indeed it did.  
> Who would've expected there to have been horrific, tentacle-ridden beasts lurking around the utmost edges of the Furthest Ring?   
> exactly!!   
> 

==> Oh, fuck. You're having a flashback.

     Your name is Rose Lalonde, and you've been guiding the only source of light through the endless, writhing darkness for exactly three human years. It would surprise you to learn that it was far from an uneventful, dull journey, despite the fact that you were basically finding creative ways to move in a straight line, were you not a seer. Now that you're at its end, you can barely believe how long you've been travelling for.

     As the asteroid slows to meet a ship that's grinding to a halt, you hold your breath, about to find out whether a god can die from oxygen deprivation. But before you even begin to feel light-headed, something in the darkness shifts, and then your asteroid and the ship are drawn close, tendrils binding you together, pulsating. knew that was too easy, Dave helpfully chimes in from beside you, and you can't work out whether you want to stare at the eldritch horror that's clambering up the side of the asteroid with a sickly squelch, or the two godly figures floating your way. Your vision flickers from John and over to Jade; her face is new, in the flesh.

     It's just like John said in his letter. There really _are_ dog ears atop her head. It suddenly strikes you that it's an absurd thing to find endearing when you're about to face off against a creature from the depths, and you grin up at her, knowing that she's far from helpless. You float up to meet her, knowing that two gods are better than one, and there you and Jade are, side by side, next to one of the beast's eyes, while John and Dave take the back.

>   
>  oh my gosh rose its really you!  
> im so sorry that i cant give you a hug right now but we kind of have a boss fight ahead of us  
> and its not just any boss fight  
> for some reason i cant shrink this guy down to size no matter how much i try.......   
> To no surprise. We're currently at the very edge of the Furthest Ring, where both space and time have even less of a tenuous grasp on the fabric of reality than they otherwise would. Our Knight is having as many problems slowing things down as you are shrinking them.  
> And please, don't apologise for the lack of embracing.  
> We can deal with those matters in due course.   
> yeah!!!  
> that means this is our first team up   
> 

     Your first team-up indeed. There you are, thorns out, holding down the fort while Jade darts down, retrieving one of her rifles from the deck of the ship. What follows is a blistering array of gunfire, violet floods of magic, and the occasional round of Jade feeling that reloading takes far too long, and using the weapon as if it's a baseball bat. The abomination goes through various tropes befitting of a epic poem: it regenerates, grows three heads in the place of one, petrifies John from the knees down with a glance from the sixth of its twelve eyes, and then shrieks like a banshee when you finally get in the killing blow.

     It splits down the centre, thick, rubbery skin holding everything in for all of a moment; and then it _bursts_ , purple sludge luminous in the dark, coming at you like a tidal wave. You wince before it hits, knowing that there's no fleeing to be done, and can only pray that your lips are sealed tightly enough, because you're about to be swamped. The hood of your god tier outfit covers your eyes, thank god, but what you can only assume is the monster's blood, mucus, another bodily fluid that you really don't want to think about, drips down your face, runs over your lips, and slowly seeps into the fabric around you.

     You're cringing and smiling all at once. It's done. The creature's vanquished, and there's Jade next to you, throwing her arms around your waist. It's not like you to immediately reach out and return an embrace, but Jade's feet slide in the sludge, and she tumbles towards you, collision imminent. You'd rather it didn't wind you, and once you've managed to catch her, you might as well stand like that for a while, patting the back of her shoulders.

==> Meanwhile, in the present.

     From time to time, you find it within yourself to be a gracious host. You ask Jade if she'd like to stay for a few days, because surely, having to hop back through a portal is nothing short of exhausting. Jade is over the moon at the prospect of a sleepover!!!, and immediately begins rearranging the Squiddle plushies she's constantly buying you at the foot of your bed. You laugh quietly when she has her back to you, and then drag her down to the kitchen, where you let her make you dinner.

     Midway through what you can only assume is an experimental process unfolding atop your oven, your mother comes in with half a cup of coffee, and says hello to Jade. She finishes the drink off as they speak, and you almost find how well they get on uncomfortable. Telling you that she'll leave the both of you to things, she makes herself another drink, and heads straight back to her lab.

     She drinks a lot of coffee, these days, but you know better than to comment on it. Caffeine is hardly the worst thing in the world to be dependant on.

     Jade serves up dinner in her own unique way, and you spare a few moments to poke at the concoction with the end of your fork, not entirely convinced that it isn't about to gain sentience and make its way swiftly off your plate. As you take your first few tentative bites, Jade talks at breakneck-speed about the latest little oddity she's uncovered on her island, something that must have _some_ relation to Alternia. A little bonus the universe slipped in, to remind you of the friends you made who have long since returned to their own world. Listening carefully to every word she says and trying to categorise it all, you hum that the food tastes surprisingly good, considering the fact that she learnt the recipe from a dog.

     It occurs to you then that Jade has the right idea about things. She is forever switching from one extreme to another, never seeming to get a moment's rest, as if making up for all the spontaneous bursts of narcolepsy she used to suffer from. You should be more like that, living outside of a routine that revolves around this house and your college, excursions to tear apart forests notwithstanding. When dinner comes to a close and Jade asks what movie you'd like to watch first, apparently having decide that you're going to be marathon a whole selection of them, you simply suggest that you visit Dave and John.

     Hopping to her feet, Jade slams both palms down against the tabletop, and then reaches out a hand, fingers stretching out. As if to begin warping space. Laughing, you stand up, gently pressing your fingertips to the back of her wrist, stopping her before she can tear open any portals.

>   
> rose??  
> whats the problem?  
> oh! is it because i forgot to knock first?   
> While that could be viewed as part of it, it isn't the problem in its entirety. Don't you think it feels a little like cheating?   
> ummm.....  
> not really! its just making the most out of what we have   
> Well.  
> I suppose.  
> But I've never taken a road trip, and I'm told it's an experience not to be missed.   
> 

     And that settles that. Within five minutes, you've forgotten that the prospect of a road trip was your idea. Jade is on her feet, darting all around your kitchen, piling cans and packets of this and that into boxes and bags, rattling on about how great it's going to be, and all the things you're going to see and do you think therell be lambs around at this time of year rose??? You tell her there's a fairly good chance of that, considering how far you're going to be driving, and then head upstairs, fetching a hat for her. While all Lalondes in the immediate vicinity may be used to the dog ears, the strangers you'll come across on your journey might be inclined to try tugging them off.

     You pack as much as you'll need in the back of your car, imaging, for a moment, that you haven't already travelled across planets that no longer exist, and that the open road holds some adventure for you. And it will, you decide, with Jade at your side. You can forget about being gods, forget that you can crush cities with a flick of your wrist, so long as there's a wand between your fingertips, and worry about nothing beyond avoiding the most seedy of motels along the way.

     Jade hops in the passenger side long before you're ready to go, and you join her in due time, a tattered old map in one hand, your keys in the other. As you start up the engine, the two of you debate over who you'll be visiting first, well aware that the journey is more important than the destination. While you know that boredom and apathy may not be as easily conquered as colossal behemoths from the inky expanses below, the battle has to start somewhere, and there's no one else you'd rather take on the real world alongside.


End file.
